On July 15th, 1998, Rob Morrison and Dave Warshaw moved
to San Diego from Seattle and Los Angeles, respectively. On August 1st,
1998, Braden Diotte moved to San Diego, also from Los Angeles. On August
2nd, 1998, together with Dylan Scharf, a San Diego native, Tarantula Hawk
was born. Over the next four months, a six-song set of music was written
chronologically from start to finish. It was a “concept” that
was written to illustrate the lifecycle of the Tarantula Hawk, but also
illustrated the progression of a band getting comfortable with their own
sound. On February 23rd, 1999, what would be-come Tarantula Hawk’s
“Self-Titled Debut Album” was recorded. On March 1st, 1999,
Rob Morrison left Tarantula Hawk to raise his son back in Seattle. The
remaining band members were unsatisfied with the sound of Tarantula Hawk’s
existing music without the attributes of Rob’s bass and noise accompaniment,
and were not interested in trying to find anyone to replace him. Instead,
each band member took on an auxiliary instrument and new songs were conceived.

Over the next four years Tarantula Hawk solidified itself as a force to
be reckoned with within the underground music community, performing alongside
such underground heavyweights as Neurosis, Crash Worship, High On Fire,
Dystopia and The Locust. But a follow-up to their first album had yet
to become a reality. Faced with the challenge of a second album, Tarantula
Hawk quickly recognized that it wouldn’t be worth doing if they
were to simply recreate their first album over again. There thus became
a need for Tarantula Hawk to not only grow individually as musicians,
but also to grow together as a band. And these things take time……

Finally, after one year of intense writing and arranging, Tarantula Hawk
completed their second album in mid-2002. Although the album remained
aesthetically congruent with their previous effort (opting for no album
or song titles; artwork by Kevin Ross), this album leads the listener
into a deeper chasm of interpretive and creative perception by combining
the “otherworldly” musical imagery of their first album with
a much more familiar element: human emotion. Using a darker palette, this
album explores a cumulative void within the players, expressing emotions
that, for them, are best conveyed using the medium of music.